Tag: cancer

Tuesday’s Theme Music — Smithereens!

Tuesday, September 1, 2025. Ashland, southern Oregon.

September arrived in Ashland, bringing colder weather. 58 F now, our projected high is 72 today with 72% chance of thunderstorms. Tomorrow is expected to top out at 60 F, with 98% chance of rain. So rain will come at last.

Meanwhile, most of the United States east of the Rockies to the Atlantic, north to Canada and south to the Gulf of Mexico, are enduring a heat wave

I’m a bit dispirited today. Another friend has prostate cancer. And Mom sent me a lengthy text last night. Another of my sisters, Lisa, took Mom new checks, along with a new tee-shirt and sweater. Mom told me that she felt chest pains yesterday and rested in bed. Also told me that it takes her three hours to get ready for bed. If true, that’s actually reduced from the three hours she required for several years. I was always astonished when visiting her and she would announce, “I need to get ready for bed.” She usually went to bed at midnight but began getting ready at 8:30.

Today, Mom texted me to ask, “Should I use my old checks to pay my rent?” I just went over that with her last Friday. So did two of my sisters.

Over in Iran, attacks began again as the war, begun in the winter, drags on toward autumn. I remember the days when Trump said the war was already over.

Instead, we have Trump offering a cartoonish AI-generated video of blowing up Kharg Island, declaring it’s “blown to smithereens”.

Like, wow. How old are you, grandpa? I know the expression but I’ve honestly don’t think I’ve heard it in years, maybe decades. It’s extremely bizarre to hear it said by an adult while discussing a war. I mean, it’s such a childish expression.

It’s a useful video for Trump, however. As part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!, Trump’s video has us wondering about his word choices and sanity, instead of dwelling on the continuing affordability crisis, or his lies, corruption, and general incompetence.

There are no reports that Kharg Island has been ‘blown to smithereens’. A US military official in fact said it was not targeted.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Yes, I’ve used that quote before. But it’s important, I think, to remember that when Trump was running for office in 2024, he blamed President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for bombs falling in the middle east — Gaza. He was arguing that the Biden administration had produced exactly the things he said a Trump presidency would prevent. Then he won, took office, and started war after claiming he would prevent wars, causing the inflation and rising prices which he claimed he would prevent.

Infuriating as hell.

Meanwhile, the Roberts Court said Trump could proceed building the Epstein ballroom. They avoided saying that it was legal for Trump to tear down a wing of the White House and start building something else without funds approved by Congress. That’s perfectly aligned with the weak principles of the Roberts Court. Equally, Roberts was part of the dissent, which is particularly laughable. He was basically bemoaning what the monster he helped create was doing.

Trump’s use of smithereens provoked My Neurons to bring up songs by the Smithereens. Among the songs in my morning mental music stream was “Only A Memory”. The 1988 song is about love, memory, loss, and history. As I have no love for Trump and wish he was history, it seems like a fine song for today.

I hope your spirits are high and your hopes are strong, and that you have the fortitude to overcome whatever is thrown your way.

Cheers

7

Tuesday’s Theme Music — Jail

Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, July 14, 2026.

Gonna be hot today, probably 96. Reached 96 yesterday, too. Today’s sky offers blue, blue, blue, and blue wherever you look. It’s a comfortable 74 degrees F right now with a mild breeze gracing us.

It’s the birthday for one of my younger cousins today, but she passed away from cancer several years ago. I remember her with fondness for who she was, sadness for her reduced life and the disease she endured.

Trump announced another blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in conjunction with his war on Iran. Then Trump said that he was going to charge ships a 20% fee to go through, something well-established as illegal.

Then Trump TACOed and rescinded that announcement.

I suspect it was just another Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! move. Keep us distracted from his many failures and setbacks, such as that other distraction, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool fiasco, and that mess called the Epstein Ballroom, sartorially named after Trump’s good friend.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Judge Kathleen Williams blocked Trump’s sweeping IRS settlement. If you remember, Trump sued the IRS, demanding $10,000,000,000 in damages. The DOJ announced a settlement between the IRS and Treasury in which a victim fund of $1.47B was established to be paid out. It also said the IRS agreed never to audit Trump and his family and their businesses or tax returns.

Judge Williams found some problems with the settlement.

I read her 56-page ruling yesterday, skipping many of the footnotes and some of the legal precedents. Fun read, though.

The Federal judge said this is a case of Trump against Trump, with Trump controlling both sides. She cited Trump’s early Executive Orders when he took office for his second term, noting that he made it clear that he was in charge of the executive branch and all of its offices, personnel, and decisions. As the case pitted the Treasury against the IRS and both of them are part of the Executive Branch, and Trump controls both, it’s like arguing with yourself.

Judge Williams also went on to note the lack of evidence, documentation, and statements made by the defendants. All this pointed to a lack of adversity, so the two sides were not arguing about anything. There were also a few comments made about the lawyers, and things the lawyers said in testimony to Congress and public statements.

Along with all that, she found the fund they established as a ‘settlement’ made no sense, because it awarded money to be given to parties unrelated to the lawsuit, and it established no means for controlling it.

I like the way that Judge Williams put it after laying out her reasoning:

“The Parties used the existence of federal litigation as a means of conferring
legitimacy upon a course of action that they were unwilling to subject to judicial review.
The context of the “settlement,” the relationships of the people involved in negotiating and
approving it, the ethical implications of their conduct, and the Parties’ swift efforts to
dismiss this case after the Court raised fundamental jurisdictional questions all support
this conclusion.”

Other news found the Trump Administration unfreezing money meant for blue states. Trump had the $10B HHS funds for the five states frozen, claiming that they were perpetuating fraud. Standard for Trump, he offered little evidence for his claim and made sweeping allegations.

The affected states sued. A federal judge blocked the freeze and mandated that Trump administration needed to explain why they’d frozen the money and justify their action. Rather than share their thinking, the money was unfrozen.

Trump also finally paid the $5M plus interest Trump owed E. Jean Carroll. A court ruled three years ago that Trump owed her the money for sexually assaulting her in 1996 and defaming her.

After all that, I was thinking about Trump and jail. The Neurons noticed and slotted a Thin Lizzy song into the morning mental music stream, “Jailbreak”. *smile*

I hope this day gives you many reasons to smile and be happy.

Cheers

6

Medical Update

Received my biopsy results the other day and saw my urologist today.

The TURBT procedure seemed to get all of the cancer. Didn’t get into the muscle tissue, blood, or connective tissue.

That’s all good news.

My bladder seems to be healing well, based on observations. No pain, clearer urine.

The next steps begin in August, maybe September. After my bladder has healed from its surgery, we’ll begin a series of BCG washes. This is an instillation of tuberculosis bacilli into the bladder. This trains the immune system to attack the disease. It then also attacks any cancer cells which dare to show. I’ll go through that once a week for four to six weeks. There’s a less than 1% chance that I’ll develop TB from it.

CT scans with contrast will follow after the BCG wash protocol to see what shows in my bladder. Cystoscopy if or as necessary to see what’s in there. Three-year follow up program of checking and washes.

First steps have been taken. While it’s all positive to date, it won’t be done for a while. Meanwhile, I’m energetic. In good spirits. Overweight — got to eat less and exercise more, but I can’t exercise properly for two more weeks — but optimistic.

Thanks for all the support. I’ll try to reciprocate to the best I can.

Cheers

15

Thursday’s Theme Music — Fighting Fires

Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, June 25, 2026.

Cooler today — just 85 F — but the summer mix of blue sky and sunshine continues without interruption in our valley.

I haven’t been watching the World Cup games. Not my kind of football. But I dreamed that I was working with a gregarious black guy, trying to sell team jerseys to fans. He’d come into a large shipment of them at a discount, but he didn’t know what sizes he had. All had been manufactured outside of the US, and they weren’t using the labels familiar to me. I was using the Internet to help him size them so he could sell them.

Results are not back from Mom’s tests yesterday, except they have confirmed she doesn’t have a yeast infection. My sister, Gina, related that Mom was complaining about the sunglasses Mom was wearing: they were too big. She went on a rant that Frank probably let his sister, Joan, wear them, because Joan has a big head. She finished, “I could just kill Frank.”

Gina replied, “Mom, you do know that Frank died last year, don’t you?”

I feel like I’m in a variation of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. In that 1989 song, he recites court decisions, celebrity names, historic events, and pop culture fads and trends that took place between 1949, when Joel was born, to the current date in 1989. As I read the news, there’s a Billy Joel rhythm: Supreme Court rules, shooting leaves x dead, earthquakes, wildfires, flooding, climate change denial, Trump texts, Trump promises, Trump lies, Trump claims, distraction, distraction, distraction, fake news, elections, corruption, facts, truth, history, Epstein files, Epstein ballroom, tariffs, Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Strait of Hormuz, Musk, Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, China, ICE in the cities, economy, jobs, prices, prices, prices, crisis, crisis, crisis!

Trump didn’t start the fire. But he threw gasoline on it and gave it oxygen. He didn’t start it but we’re gonna fight it.

The song had a lot of airplay back in the early 1990s but has since faded. Not one of Joel’s better offerings, the chorus was pretty familiar to everyone because of the airplay.

Despite those thoughts, The Neurons have the Allman Brothers performing “Statesboro Blues” in my morning mental music stream. A favorite song and cover, it has a jumping, thumping sound to it which always kickstarts my energy.

I hope you have great day, summer or winter, wherever you inhabited for now, and that all goes well for you and yours.

I’m off to my appointments. Cheers

1

Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

I have bladder cancer surgery tomorrow. I’ve been told what they’ll do, and I have my instructions for washing, sleeping in clean clothes, when to show, what to wear – what I can and drink, when. Anyone who’s had surgery or knows someone who went through surgery is probably familiar with these guidelines.

I’m in a good space for it. Inconveniences abound, yes, and some potential for a life-altering outcome, but I have the healthcare insurance to cover it. Have a team to do it, and a safe place to recover. I won’t need to worry about food or shelter, and my wife is there for me.

I was thinking about how much worse this is for my wife than me. She has to endure the waiting. I mean, if something happens to me, well, it happens. She must deal with the aftermath.

So, I worry about how she worries. I’m anxious about her anxieties.

I asked her, “How are you feeling about my surgery tomorrow?”

She replied, “I feel good about it. I’m not worried at all.”

Which is exactly what I wanted to hear.

No matter what happens to me, I hope she’ll be okay.

5

Trumptoids

The new Trump phone is here! The new Trump phone is here!

Unfortunately for its buyers, many are already referring to it as overpriced junk. Perhaps it’ll find a second life on eBay.

The GOP called for a resolution to end Trump’s war in Iran. Then, realizing it might pass, they pulled it.

Tulsi Gabbard is out as DNI due to her husband’s health. Wonder if Kash and Stephen Miller can find similar reasons to resign…

I don’t wish cancer on anyone. And I wish her husband and their family well as they endure his cancer and treatment. But I am jaded and cynical, wondering if Trump’s declining popularity and continuing chaos played into Gabbard’s resignation.

And I think, ‘who made who?’ Did the current environment make me as cynical as I am, or did my thinking help create this environment?

Probably a bit of both, with a little help from my friends.

Project Epic LOOK – SQUIRREL! took an unsurprising turn this week when the Trump administration announced they’d indicted the ex-President of Cuba. Here’s a quote that had me laughing/gagging:

‘While announcing the charges, Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said President Donald Trump “will not forget its citizens.” Separately, the president said the US will make an announcement on the embargo against Cuba “pretty soon.”’

The headline in the link says:

Indictment holds accountable those who kill Americans, Blanche says

Hell, if that headline was true, ICE would be facing accountability, as they have killed Americans.

This is just more Trump theater. He’s lost approval among voters and found a way to get some love from the Cuban/American community. $1776 to service members, a slush fund for J6 insurrectionists, attacks on Iran for the war mongers…and do you see how he’s releasing women from his cabinet?

Wonder who he’s trying to win with that move.

In other news…

Read the entire article at NPR where the Trump voter says, yes, he and his wife cope with high food prices by fasting, while giving Trump an A+.

It’s frustrating to read this article. This Trump voter claims he’s a critical thinker and that’s why he voted for Trump.

Why? What was it? Was it Trump’s claim that if Kamala Harris became POTUS, we’d be at war in Iran? Was it Trump’s business bankruptcies, his multiple marriages, his failure to come through with his promises to have Mexico pay for the wall? Was it Jan 6 when Trump encouraged rioters and attempted to overturn the election? Trump’s continued lying and obsession with losing in 2020, claiming without any evidence that the election was stolen? Was it Trump’s documented 30,000 plus lies in his first four years in office?

What, what, what did this critical thinker research and think to come to his conclusion that Trump was the answer? That’s what we really want to know.

Because now this Trump voter claims that the high prices are worth it if Iran is put into its place. Yet, Trump had them worried about Kamala Harris started a war there.

Lot of critical thinking going on there…yessir…

Likewise, Donald Trump keeps making crap claims like this: President Biden had FBI agents in the Jan 6 crowd.

Those critical thinkers who support Trump overlook the fact that Trump was POTUS on Jan 6, and had been for the previous four years. How would yet to be POTUS Joe Biden have that power?

Ah, yes, the eternal MAGA boogey man: the deep state.

This is what we face. Fact-adverse Trump supporters who turn away from everything he does that goes against what he said he’d do.

No new wars.

A unifier.

Drain the swamp.

How many more years will it take for them to learn?

Well, that question assumes that they CAN — or that they want to.

4

All ‘Bout Me

Just got a text reminder. I’m due to receive my next dental implant on June 25. That’s exactly a year since the molar and cyst were removed.

Since then, I’ve had my gallbladder removed. Stones and sludge in there, you know?

That was about a year after my ruptured tendon surgery. About two years after my broken arm, itself about two years after my kidney stones emergency room visit, which was about two years after my obstructed bladder emergency.

Now I’m due for Transurethral Resection in my bladder to remove cancer.

On June 25.

Damn, what are the chances that those two things would end up scheduled for the same day?

I’ll need to change the implant appointment. Although I’ve waited a long time to get that completed, facts: the bladder cancer is a greater priority, and it’s harder to schedule. I began noticing blood in my urine in March, and there’s been long periods between blood tests, examinations, CT scans, cystoscopy, and surgery. I don’t want to extend it yet more.

From the half-full point of view, though, I’m fortunate to be able to get any and all of this treatment. So, sure, I’m whining, but it’s first world blues.

It’s way worse for my wife, who has had to visit me to all these different appointments and help me recover. Don’t know where I’d be without her and her support.

6

My Situation

I officially have bladder cancer.

This started as blood in my urine a few months back. A CT Scan with contrast showed a lump in my bladder. I went to have a cystoscopy yesterday.

That was an interesting appointment. A med tech, Chris, did the standard intake to update my records. Then he explained that they didn’t have the cystoscopy equipment.

Whaaaat?

It was going to arrive later that day. So I could come back…

Chris left. Ten minutes later, the doctor entered the room.

She did a double take: like, why wasn’t I gowned and in the chair? Pretty funny expression, very human.

Then she sat and we talked. I explained to her that Chris said that the cystoscopy equipment wasn’t there. Oh, the doctor realized she’d misunderstood the staff that morning. She thought they were telling her more equipment was arriving.

She left. I went out to talk to Chris about the situation. Another tech hung up her phone and announced that the equipment was at the hospital warehouse. She was going to race over and pick it up.

Okay. I stayed and waited.

“This might pinch,” Chris said twenty minutes later.

I was naked from the waist down on the chair. Reclined, a flimsy paper sheet covering me. Until Chris uncovered me and injected lidocaine up my urethra.

Pinch? No, it stung in a big way.

That was just the beginning.

The doctor came in. Lubed up her camera. Inserted it into my urethra. She and I watched on a monitor as the camera went up my urethra.

“Arrgh.” I arched up in pain.

She nodded. “Yes, your urethra narrows a lot here. Did you have a Foley catheter before?”

“Yes. Twice.”

“That explains it. Okay, I’m in the bladder. There’s the tumor. Yes, cancer. See it? Looks like a small coral reef on your bladder wall.”

A three cm posterior bladder tumor.

She pulled the camera out. Explained next steps. Surgery in six to eight weeks. I’d be sedated. She’d put a tube up my urethra and then scoop the cancer out. TURBT (transurethral resection of bladder tumor), gemcitabine.

Referral to another doctor for PCNL – Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy – to remove the 1.4 cm stone in my right kidney.

I’ll let you know how it all goes.

14

Thirstdaz Theme Music

Looked out the window and what did I see? Weak, uneven sunshine, blue sky patches, thick towels of scattered white clouds. I also saw the far-ish mountains with their thick evergreen coats. Sunshine and shadows spangled them in different verdant hues. Sunshine sneaks through the windows and darts away. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to look across and see the tops of the trees on the top of this low mountain because of the weather, and I missed that scene. This is Thirstda, December 18, 2025.

Two friends lost family members this week. Both lost members were sisters and both passed after prolonged cancer struggles. So, a moment of thought for each of them. The holidays are stressful enough for people without the added weight of a family member passing. Although in one case at least, the family was relieved because they hated how their sister/mother/aunt/grandmother was suffering.

Thinking of sisters inspired The Neurons. I’ve been doing many text exchanges with my second-oldest ‘little sister’. She’s the one who volunteered her home and family to take care of Mom. Taking care of anyone is a challenge but Mom at 90 can be a test for your nerves and patience. The two are again at peace, and I hope that lasts. Of course, Mom is going through a chunk of stuff with her health, age, and the loss of her longtime live-in boyfriend, Frank. Frank was a giving and caring steward for her, and though his feet were small, those are big shoes to fill. Add to that, the natural stresses brought on by winter storms and the holiday season, and it gets to be a very heavy load.

So, the Neurons filled the morning mental music stream with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble playing their cover of Hank Ballard’s song, “Look at Little Sister”. I have three younger sisters. I regularly text with them. All are mothers, two are grandmothers, two are tremendously fit, and two are very successful. All are a treasure to me. My fourth sister is the single sibling older than moi. She and I get along well but don’t exchange many texts. Still working, she’s engrossed with her children and grandchildren.

Coffee is treating my cells to some wake up energy. Hope peace and grace come out of their hole and don’t see their shadow.

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